Today's rambling: My promo
Written on Friday, Oct. 04, 2002 at 2:55 p.m.
while feeling a bit

Before I start with my titillating day (ha ha ;)...just a response to baderin's Note (which you'd probably have to read in order to understand my response, lol)...You have a very good point. Having never really HAD any experience with fraternities, I'm sure I am working off of a lot of assumptions and stereotypes. And if I ever get another invitation from a different fraternity, I'm sure I'll go. Despite it all, though, I still have to decline on this particular fraternity's invite. Even if what I was told is complete rumor, I'd still rather not take the chance. If it turns out that I'm wrong about them, then I'll gladly apologize for acting so silly. But as I said, I really don't want to take that chance. Still, there are a couple of guys at the radio station who're in fraternities...maybe once I get to know them better, I'll get invited again! ;)

Okay. Now, lessee...

For whatever reason, I ran insanely late this morning and only had 10 minutes (less than that, really) to eat breakfast. Then I rushed down to Becker for CIS, sat through that dull class...and then I got up the nerve to walk downstairs and see about recording my promo for DJ training. It's due this Wednesday, and Larry warned us that it would be hard to get in toward the end because so many others would be trying to get theirs finished, so I thought that this morning would probably be my best chance.

Figuring out how to do everything was easy. I had a little trouble figuring out how the microphone turned on, because I didn't notice the knob up top that switched from the turntable to the microphone. Other than that, though, everything was incredibly simple. I wasn't sure how I wanted to arrange the music bed (like, what songs I was going to play underneath my talking), but that all fell together as I was experimenting. In fact, the music bed came together rather quickly; the talking part was what caught me up. I'm glad I went down by myself, because if I'd had someone there with me I probably would've settled for something less just because I didn't want to make them sit through all my different attempts. I'm so nitpicky about things that I did the vocal tracks several different times, trying different inflections and all that. I feel like my voice is so bland and unenthusiastic. :

In the Production Room, the promo sounded great. The talking was just loud enough to sound good over the music, the music switched at perfect places...I was feeling quite pleased. The best part was the sound effect toward the end. In my promo, I list a few different artists, and then I'm like, "And who knows...maybe I'll even throw in a little Spice Girls!" At that point, the background song stops abruptly and you hear the sound of a record scratching...you know, like if you just rip the needle away from the record real fast? I needed that sound effect, but none of the SFX records had that particular noise! So I made my own. ^_^ I pulled out an LP that looked as though it didn't get much use, stuck it on the turntable, and proceeded to scratch the needle across it. The first attempt was good, but way too loud, so I tried several more times 'til I found one I liked.

Like I said, while I was listening to it in the Production Room, I was pleased with the work I'd done. I recorded it onto a cassette tape (by that point, the station was closed 'til 3 and all the lights were out), then brought it back to my room to listen to it again. Somehow, during its travel from computer to cassette, the sound speeded up so--to my ears--I sound like a Munchkin. I got Pam to come in and listen to it, and I expected to hear her make fun of me for having such a lame-sounding promo. But she was like, "I am so jealous! You have to let Jess hear this!"

We dragged Jess (who's a DJ, I think I mentioned) into my room, and I played the promo again. She gets this huge grin on her face and shouts, "That kicks ASS!!" Since she'd gone out into the hallway by the time she shouted it, she drew the attention of a few other girls...so I ended up having to play it for them, too. :P Everyone thought it was really good! Jess was like, "You're making my promo!" Hehe...Well, I'm glad they all liked it! I like the concept of it, but it's the final result that has me a little disappointed. The talking is louder than the music on the cassette version, and as I said, everything is sped up too much. But I guess that's just little nitpicky perfectionistic stuff. I hope Larry likes it enough to let me continue with training! The only real big hurdle after this is taping myself on air..I think. I don't think he has any other tests or anything for us. The on-air bit is something like seguing songs and introducing a song, something like that. I should be alright with that, but I'm going to try and get in a couple more sit-ins so I can try a little more. I technically have all my sit-ins done, but a few more would never hurt, right?

Oo, in other good news, I found out that the ground floor of Givan (the one I was praising last night) does have its own bathrooms. So yeah, Kristen and I will be attempting to move down there next year. ;) I only wish we could move in next semester, LoL! Well, I guess that would be a little too much work. It's just that when I get excited about stuff, I want to do it right away! :P

One of Kristen's friends was giving a campus tour today, and she called Kristen to ask if she could show our room. We scrambled to make our beds and eliminate some of the clutter, and they only ended up staying for like four minutes. *chuckles* Kristen did most of the talking. I felt like I was being mean and unsocial, not saying anything, but I couldn't think of anything TO say! That's why I'd never be any good at touring, training, anything that requires me to be talkative. :P

Anyway, Kristen's boyfriend is bugging me, hehe, so I have to go. Oo, and I'm plant-sitting this weekend for the girl across the hall, lol! I hope I don't kill it! ;) Just kidding...plants like me. ;)